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Taste Alberta’s Farms and Ranches
If you imagine a week at a Rocky Mountain dude ranch means a steady diet of cowboy biscuits and beans, consider this. A recent foray into the Alberta foothills for a mini ranch vacation had us dining like well-heeled city slickers on cowboy cuisine with a regional Alberta twist. From the platters of whisky marinated bison flank steak and chili-spiked sweet potatoes, to the mixed baby greens drizzled in local black currant vinaigrette and colourful vine-ripened tomatoes stuffed with wild rice, we enjoyed a steady diet of contemporary ranch food, created with fresh ingredients from local farms and ranches. Even in the spring, when grain and vegetable crops are just being seeded here on the high plains, there is local food in the larder, whether it's fresh tomatoes from a nearby green house, locally-ranched game or wild berry syrup for your breakfast pancakes. And on guest ranches like Mac MaKenny's historic Homeplace Ranch in the rolling foothills of southwest Alberta, less than an hour's drive from Calgary's international airport, you can combine a love of horses and haute cowboy cuisine in one rustic ranch vacation. Feast on Favourite Local Foods It's all part of a new Flavours of the Foothills program cooked up by MaKenny and his neighbors in the foothills just 50 km (31 miles) south of Calgary. On any given week, guests at the ranch can expect to start the day with a big cowboy breakfast of eggs, home fries and strong coffee, and return from horseback riding along spectacular Rocky Mountain trails for a feed of Alberta beef steak or grilled B.C. salmon. But during one special week in September (Sept. 29 through Oct. 6 this year for $1,288 Cdn pp), local food, and the producers who provide it, are the focus. Every meal features Alberta food products in home-style ranch recipes, and guests can tour area farms to see elk and bison being raised, the art of turning local honey into mead (honey wine), berry farms harvesting black currants for juices and jellies, and hothouses filled with tomatoes hanging heavily on the vine. Of course, you can create your own tour anytime in this authentic cowboy country that his home to farms and ranches. But Flavours of the Foothills brings it all together for you in one package. This weekend, ranch cook Dawn Albin is testing out her bison drying and pounding skills, serving up trays of pemmican, a traditional prairie First Nations food, created using both historic and contemporary recipes. While the authentic balls of dried saskatoon berries and shredded bison jerky, bound together with rendered bison fat, provide an interesting combination of meaty and tart berry flavours, I'm partial to the meatballs made with ground bison and berries. They're similar to the pemmican patties I created for my book about indigenous Alberta cuisine, High Plains (Fifth House Books), and perhaps better suited to modern palates. Canadian guest ranches Experience Bison Tongue, Sweet Mead and Ales It's a similar case with rancher Terry Church's bison tongue appetizer. While First Nations' families prized the tongue of the animal they relied on almost exclusively for food, shelter, clothing and tools, they probably didn't poach their bison tongue with pickling spices and serve it in creamy slabs atop crostini with a drizzle of wild berry reduction like Church. And they likely didn't wash it down with a selection of local ales and lagers from Big Rock Brewery, Chinook Honey Company's sweet mead or a tangy black currant punch from Kayben Farms. At MaKenny's Homeplace Ranch, riding is always on the menu and with his patient wranglers and careful instruction, it may be the best place for a greenhorn to saddle up for a riding and ranch vacation. But even in this pristine setting, among the tall trees and historic ranch buildings, after a few days in the saddle, you may be ready for an outing. That's where the food tour kicks in. From the Homeplace Ranch, tucked into the foothills near Priddis, we made our way south to Whiskey Creek Greenhouse where Carmen Ditzler and Greg Perry tend a forest of beefsteak, green zebra and orange roma tomatoes. If they're busy at work, visitors can simply pick up a bag or a case of tomatoes, weigh them on the scale at the door and plunk their cash in the honor bowl. Explore the Cowboy Trail The Cowboy Trail continues south through Turner Valley where you can stop in at the Route 40 Soup Company for chef Mark Klaudt's creative take on regional foothills fare, from his famous hand crafted soups (also available in jars to go) and homemade crackers, to salads, wraps (like smoked trout with chili infused Chinook honey or seared bison and wild mushrooms), and dinner entrees like Alberta Wild Paella with venison sausage, pheasant and smoked perch. Enroute to Okotoks, Chinook Honey Co. sits up on a wind-swept bluff with a wide angle view of the Rocky Mountains. There, beekeepers Cherie and Art Andrews produce sweet clover and fireweed honey, and have a honey bee interpretive centre, complete with a buzzing glass "observation hive". In their country store you can buy all kinds of edible honey products, plus a full line of Planet Bee apitherapy natural medicines derived from honey, bee pollen, royal jelly and propolis (the resin produced by bees to seal their hives). It makes a fascinating and tasty stop, especially considering that the Andrews plan to make their own fermented honey wine (aka mead) soon. Ranch vacations Take Your Pick at Black Currant Orchard Next in line is a stop at Kayben Farms where the Kolk family have a nursery, garden centre and large black currant orchard. You can pick the berries yourself or take home some of their natural currant juices, jellies and jams. Finally, at the O'Connor ranch, elk, bison and caribou are raised to supply the Canadian Rocky Mountain Resorts hotels and restaurants, including the upscale Buffalo Mountain Lodge in Banff and the historic Ranche restaurant in Calgary. Over platters of their elk bacon and bison smokies, we learned about their original Rocky Mountain Cuisine and how it can be cooked in your own kitchen with products purchased directly from the ranch or over the Internet. Then back at the ranch, it's chow time again When visiting his historic 1912 homestead in southern Alberta, MaKenny and his crew immerse you in real ranch life, whether you're saddled up on the trail, learning how to quietly communicate with one of his happy horses, or listening to his family stories around the fire. But he also has a way of including everyone in his extended farm family, and it's not long before you're roped right in, wandering into the kitchen to pour your own coffee, or digging into the dough with the cooks to make a batch of the fat cinnamon buns that arrive hot from the oven. MaKenny knows that the fastest way to share culture, history and lifestyle is over a feast of favourite local foods, and you'll learn a lot while you pass the potatoes at his table. -------------------- E-mail this article to your friend! HotelDirectory.ws presents direct links to hotels, apartments, hostels, motels, guesthouses,
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